Monday, October 25, 2010

The Wrong Shoes + More...

Today I re-learned a lesson I have learned many times. Today was a good day. I have been in this situation before on a lesser day and came out worse. Today I felt great. If @quinnyko reads this blog entry she will likely tweet "@egggmanDUCK ARSE!!!" afterwards. I think I am pretty safe though because she does not read my blog as I bore her with my bike ramblings too much even in the real world.

Anyways, back to today. Today has been an up and down day as illustrated in my earlier blog entry. Why should my lunch hour activities be any different? I decided I would do my 5K lunch run, I asked my office roommate Paul if he wanted to run along as he often does. He opted out as he had taken the morning off sick and figured he was better to stay in. I went into the Network closet and geared up for a run. This is where things changed, I remmebered how great my ride in had been and the weather had only improved since. Back into the netrwork closet to swap running shorts for cycling shorts - Big oldschool baggy cycling shorts with built in thick padding and my cheap shoes I wear quite often when I go out on the fixed gear. From here I grab the fixed gear and my helmet and off I go.

I decided that I wanted to take a new route and skim the countryside. I started out of town and made a couple great climbs that I always ride. Next I went straight where I usually turn and took a nice long climb out of the city. It just kept going and going as a fairly easy pitch. Then a round about and into a nice country road with wide cycle lanes. So I decide I am in a cycle lane right, lets take in a bit of scenery. About 1km or so later I am about to go into another round about and uh oh what is that metal mesh ahead? No time to think and pop the rear tire is empty.

Now I am thinking about how I prepared for this ride. Usually Paul has a pack with tubes pump lever etc... Uh oh no Paul and no supplies on top of it all he is expecting me back at the office by approximately 1pm. He knows my usual route for lunch hour rides so if I was missing i could have a pick-up. Hey wait a minute I did not take my usual route I wanted to leave the city. Also I did not tell anyone I was taking this alternate route.

So it's time to run. I ran back along a bunch of side streets until I was back to streets I recognized and back to the work. Luckily I had not gone too far out and only had to do a 6.2km run back.

The moral of the story kids: Preparation is always a good plan.

Now, remember back to the beginning of my blithering. I said today was a good day and I feel great. I actually loved the run back it felt great and the fixed gear stem was a great handle for the bike to roll smoothly alongside. The only thing i would really change would be my shoes. Those beat up old things should not be run in at all let alone any distance.